Oz @ Bristol

Whenever we go out to eat here in Bristol, we usually end up eating at a) Fast food places b) Indian restaurants, since those are the main halal places here. I have nothing against fast food (in fact, I LOVE it) but I am not too big a fan of Indian food. Too spicy for me. So it was a pleasant surprise when we discovered that there was a halal TURKISH restaurant here, in fact 5 minutes from the university buildings (for those not in the know, the University of Bristol is not a campus university).

I actually didn't know what Turkish food is like. I thought it would be something like Indian (they usually are!!! or...not :P) but a look at the menu proved me wrong. (wish I took a photo, but oh well.) The restaurant itself was nice enough, if a bit plain. Some of the others complained that the chairs were too high, but I didn't have a problem with it. Maybe because the chairs in our house are pretty high anyway :P There were a lot of tealights, but the lighting wasn't especially dim. Just comfortable. :)

Anyway. On with the food!

Because it was an unfamiliar menu, most of us chose pretty much the same thing. When asked for drinks, pretty much everyone chose Coke - except for Hadi, who wanted to be "different". He chose Sprite instead. Big difference. :P The same thing happened with the food.

The two guys - being "different" - chose different dishes. Hadi chose one of the set meals - which consisted mainly of houmous and a lamb kebab. He seemed to like it. He particularly liked the texture - perfectly cooked, not overdone or underdone. The lamb flavour wasn't all that strong either, he claimed. But, Hadi (being Hadi) said that it could've used more seasoning. As I've mentioned so many times, he likes his food strong :P TJ had a different dish. I'm not quite sure what it was, but apparently it was chicken in a mushroom paste thing.

The girls, on the other hand, had similar dishes. Two of us had chicken shish, which consisted of chicken cubes with rice. the other two (me being one of them :P) had a chicken casserole thing, which was chicken cooked with red peppers and tomatoes. But we shared between each other, so we got to taste the other person's dish ;) When the food came though, there were audible groans of disappointment, since the rice provided looked like quite a small portion. :P Snide comments about how they were using big plates to hide the small portions were made all around - in Malay, of course ;)

First, the chicken shish. I thought it was nicely flavoured :D I don't have kebabs that often, but this was quite similar, and nicer besides! The chicken was really nicely cooked. Crisp on the outside, and tender on the inside. Just perfect!

As for the chicken casserole thing (it had a name, i just forgot. There were various cries of "I know how to speak Turkish now!" throughout the night though. Enthusiastic bunch, that's us!), I thought it was rather similar to something I cooked before. I am not really a fan of tomatoes OR red pepper, but this was rather nice. The rice was also tasty, apparently butter was added. Mmmmmmm..... :D The presentation of the food was not too bad either, as you might be able to glimpse. :D


In the end, everyone was very full - despite earlier complaints :P The food was more filling that it looked. The chicken shish had a total of 6 cubes of chicken, but they were rather big. The chicken casserole was also in a pretty big serving, so I suppose in this case, our eyes were bigger than our tummies ;)

Price-wise, I would much prefer a fast-food restaurant - or perhaps cook a really good meal at home! ;) But in all honesty, it wasn't too bad. Typical restaurant price - 7-8 pounds per person. Just not something a student would be able to afford too often. But that's okay. That's why I cook at home! :D Good food at good prices ;)